Finch Sells | Affiliate Marketing Blog

Will You Really Earn More Money In 2012?

Jan 03 2012

One of the most predictable New Year’s Resolutions for an Affiliate Marketer goes like this:

“I will learn how to control my time. I will defeat procrastination. 2012 better watch out ’cause I’m coming to kick its arse…”

The statement of intent is admirable, but far too many of us fail to learn from mistakes of the previous twelve months. Do we expect them to just disappear? Irrationally, yes we do. We wait for a new dawn, pretend that we’re all the wiser, and then plunge head-first in to the same mistakes yet again.

I would guess that at least half of the people reading this blog woke up on January 1st with the desire to procrastinate less. We see it as the great barrier to achievement. “Well, if I could only bring my mind to focus on all the plans I’ve set for myself, I’d be as rich as my whiteboard says.”

Procrastination is a buzz term that bloggers love to blog about, writers love to write about and speakers love to speak about. It’s a universal phenomenon. To beat procrastination is to pin jelly to a wall. Just when you think you’ve cleared your head of all the distractions and white noise, along comes another unforeseen circumstance to obliterate your carefully laid plans. We end up feeling sorry for ourselves. No matter how hard we search for solutions, we still fall in to the same black hole lapses of productivity.

If you don’t challenge yourself to tackle the problem at its source, you might as well pencil in ‘beating procrastination’ as your annual challenge for 2013, 2014, and every subsequent year for the rest of your life.

So what is the source of procrastination? Ultimately, it’s the failure to foresee your own weaknesses. It’s not a lack of application, or desire, or ambition. Procrastination is simply what happens when you plan a future without addressing the fragility of the decision-making by your future self.

We can all assess procrastination logically in moments like these where we’re reading the obvious in black and white. Yes, we know it’s bad. Yes, we know it’s a hindrance. And yes, we’re all going to make an extra effort to conquer the problem. It’s natural to feel vaccinated against procrastination while you’re reading about it. Unfortunately, there is no vaccination. Just sensible planning.

To reduce the procrastination struggle, you need to make contingency plans for your future self; a much weaker feebler-minded self that has long forgotten your ambitions, and wishes only to cave in to short term satisfaction. Pretending that this alter-ego doesn’t exist is the fastest way to guarantee failure.

A naive New Year’s Resolution is to vow not to spend hours checking Facebook every day, using the thought of all the extra work you’d get done as an incentive.

A realistic New Year’s Resolution is to vow not to spend hours checking Facebook every day, and then LeechBlock the motherfucker so that its physically inaccessible between 9am and 8pm.

The difference between these resolutions is that one is driven by an idealistic hope that temptation will diminish given the right incentive. Much wiser than such hope, is a contingency plan for your weaker future self. Procrastination is just a term we give to the many temptations that control our short term decisions. Temptation is here to stay, and so is our habit of caving in to it like victims of a venus flytrap – unless we learn to tackle the temptation in advance.

Procrastination is not like smoking. It’s not a dirty habit that we can overcome with the right incentive. One day, even the most ardent nicotine fiend may find that cigarettes just don’t hold the same appeal. Such success stories prove that beating an addiction is painful but possible. Beating procrastination is not. It would require evolutionary re-programming that probably won’t be possible in our lifetimes. We are hardwired to cave in to short term temptation much more willingly than we will hold out for long term satisfaction. And that’s why you find yourself balls deep on Facebook when you should be hard at work.

If we can’t eliminate procrastination, what can we do? We can prepare for the temptations that have fucked us in the past. We can’t remove temptation, but we can control behaviour by putting our future selves on a metaphorical leash.

Here are some examples of steps an affiliate marketer can take to become more productive:

1. Pick a new traffic source, any new traffic source, and deposit $1000 immediately. The simple act of committing money to a project will do more for your ‘scaling’ than any amount of scribbling in a notepad.

2. Use LeechBlock to physically remove access to time wasting sites. Don’t just hope that you won’t waste your time. Physically stop your future self! There will be moments in the day where your attention is slipping and that future self sees no harm in a quick 5 minute session on Facebook. Make it impossible.

3. Find a business partner with a superior motive. Once upon a time, I built websites thinking the carrot of money in the future would inspire me to see them through to completion. I soon realised that this carrot would disintegrate when a better idea came along. Naturally, your future self has a bias towards ideas born in the present. If you want to really nail a big project, take on a business partner who is even more motivated than yourself. (Hint: Somebody who gives a damn about the niche.) Use their energy and passion to maintain your spark for projects when the honeymoon period (aka. the domain registration and WordPress installation) wears off. Let them know that part of their job is to kick your arse in to action.

4. Form your own mastermind group and set a daily recap. Sharing knowledge with other affiliates is one of the fastest ways to progress. I recommend kickstarting 2012 by forming a small mastermind group with 2 or 3 other marketers in the same position. Make sure there’s a group discussion at the end of each day. Use it to share your progress. Nobody wants to be the worst performer in the group, so use that competitive pride as inspiration to get a bloody move on.

5. Announce products before they’re ready to be launched. If you run a blog, or any kind of community, and still haven’t ticked off that 2012 must-do of releasing your own product, why not create a sense of urgency? Announce it in advance, tell everybody the launch date, and let your followers hold you accountable. Even better, promise 50% off if you fail to deliver it on time.

I hope everybody is optimistic and determined to make 2012 their best year yet, no matter how depressing my contrarian approach may seem. Never be afraid of making a fresh start and setting tough targets. Just don’t be so foolish as to make the same mistakes again.

Recommended This Week

Make sure you grab a copy of Premium Posts Volume 3. Featuring over 75 pages of tips and techniques to help you dominate the dating niche, Volume 3 should give your campaigns a nice boost for 2012. Download a copy here.
If you’re working in the dating market, check out Adsimilis. Definitely one of the better networks with a wide range of dating offers, all on high payouts, including lots of stuff in Europe and South America. I think you’ll like them.
If you’re a new reader, please add me to your RSS. Also follow me on Twitter. Thanks for reading. Happy Motherfuckin’ 2012.

Get Rich, Get Frozen (Wake Me Up In 2097)

Dec 29 2011

I often get a headache when I think about where to invest my Internet Marketing dollars. I don’t want to be building websites forever. Besides, it’s only natural that the next generation will stumble across a medium even ‘newer’ than the Internet. And what happens then? We become dinosaurs, that’s what. Relics to the new youth.

So what’s the best way to invest for the future?

Should I buy stocks? Should I buy more websites? Maybe I should move strategically in to the world of real estate? You know what… screw that. Who needs a long term business when you can splash the cash on immortality?

By paying just $150,000, you can have your body cryogenically frozen in liquid nitrogen and [hopefully] brought back to life in the future. As soon as your heart stops beating, a team of cryogenic experts will descend upon your corpse and have you whisked away to one of many ‘life extension’ facilities. There, you will be stored at a temperature of below -120°C until some lunatic of the future is ready to thaw you out of your metal home.

I’m not making this shit up. Cryonics is a booming industry. Give it 20 years and Tesco will be selling the bloody thing as a gift experience for your loved ones on Christmas Day.

The great hope for cryonic customers is that science will advance to a point where terminal diseases are treatable; where immortality beckons for the rich. Before that, there’s the slightly more obvious matter of learning how to reverse the cryopreservation process.

There are a few popular myths to be debunked. Cryonics is not a ‘treatment for the dead’. It’s simply not feasible to plunge your spade in the nearest grave, weave a little Frankenstein magic, and revive the corpse as good as new. However, there have been many instances where humans have been pronounced dead, and later resuscitated.

The idea of future scientists being able to revive bodies that have been dead for days is a slap in the face to what’s known as the information-theoretic criterion for death – a term given for bodies where the cell structure and chemistry is so royally shagged that preservation would be a waste of time. ‘Real Death’, if you will.

In modern times, the lapse between a heart that no longer beats and medical death is restricted to a few minutes. Cryonics relies on this window of opportunity (what a morbid term) to immediately preserve the customer so that resuscitation can be resumed at a date in the very distant future.

Time is very much of the essence. If your corpse isn’t recovered swiftly, the shot at preservation is gone. If it’s reached in time, however, the body can be maintained indefinitely in the same state. Decades or even centuries may pass until its ready to be ‘recovered’, but the window of opportunity will still be there. The rest is down to science.

It’s a concept that reeks of science fiction, but one that is surging in popularity across the United States. Christ, just weeks ago, Larry King announced his intention to be frozen. Frankly, I was surprised that he hadn’t already undergone the procedure. Well, if it looks dead and sounds dead…

I find the idea of waking up in a different decade to be hugely intriguing. Maybe that’s because I’ve been watching too much Mad Men, but wouldn’t it be cool to refresh stats on a website you built over 50 years ago? Or is that thought too geeky? No doubt many Internet Marketers would still have zero commission to their name.

There is, of course, a religious debate to be had around this issue. Is it wrong to ‘play God’ where life and death are concerned? Honestly, I don’t have much time for the naysayers. In the last century, we’ve played God countless times in a bid to advance society through sophisticated drugs and better medical practice. We’ve been highly successful. Reversing the process of death is the final frontier, and it may not be as far fetched as it sounds.

If you’re interested, there’s one last dilemma to get your head around.

Neuropreservation vs. Whole Body Preservation

For a ‘budget’ option, you can opt for neuropreservation, which freezes only your head and is about $60,000 lighter on the wallet. Should you awaken in the next century, you will retain your sense of self, but should probably be prepared for some epic counseling that will make John Travolta’s problems in Face-Off seem like a breeze in the fucking park. That’s because your body will need to be ‘regrown’.

The deluxe plan does exactly what it says on the tin. Whole Body Preservation… or as I like to call it, the Austin Powers package. Be sure to embrace death with your best cheeky chappy pose. It’s going to be a long night, so you better give immortality that Kodak moment it deserves…

Is this legitimately what being frozen in time looks like? Answers on a postcard, please. I’d have it written in to my contract that I must be displayed in a glass box by reception at all times, or next to the water cooler…

If you don’t have $150,000 to spare but do like the idea of living forever, fear not. There are life insurance policies that can be taken out for as little as $30/month, with the beneficiary going to your cryonics agency. These fund the entire cost of the procedure.

Most importantly, you must remember to die gracefully. Messy deaths are generally frowned upon. Mowing your car in to a tree trunk, for example, is pretty much just shooting yourself in the balls. Worse, arguably. I would hazard a guess that terms and conditions apply, so please do read them carefully.

Recommended This Week:

Don’t forget to subscribe to the FinchSells RSS feed. And if you don’t already follow me, add FinchSells to your Twitter. Merci beaucoup!

How To Sell 7 CPA Offers On 1 Landing Page

Dec 28 2011

Three years ago, when I was still coming to terms with the good, the bad and the ugly in our industry, I had a brainsurge. I saw a campaign opportunity that would take upselling to the next level. It was perhaps the lowest I’ve stooped as an affiliate marketer, which coincided quite predictably with the best ROI I’ve seen to date.

The theme was simple.

I was to design a New Year’s Resolution flog. An epic landing page linking the most cited resolutions to some simple crazy tips, and a juicy affiliate offer that would cash in on each desire.

“Find out how I achieved these seven CRAZY New Years Resolutions in 2009…”

Written, of course, from the perspective of a frighteningly ordinary (and now incredibly successful) Every Joe Average. The flog took the seven most obvious New Year’s Resolutions and wove them in to a story of remarkable achievement. My character had been down on his luck at the end of 2008. He decided to turn his life around.

To do so, he set not one but seven New Year’s Resolutions.

1. To lose weight
2. To improve his income
3. To find love
4. To improve fitness
5. To quit smoking
6. To quit drinking
7. To learn something new

The flog explained how with the help of a few unusual tips (the more unusual the better, trust me) – and some relatively unknown products – he succeeded in making the last year the best of his life… the launch pad to enormous success. His resolution this year is to share the success story; to reveal to a select few the secret products that helped him, and of course, to spread a little festive cheer.

The beauty of New Year’s Resolutions is self-explanatory. They read like a list of bestselling affiliate offers. I didn’t find it difficult to match any of the resolutions to a suitable affiliate offer. If you’re wondering, ‘learn something new’ was crowbarred in to a pitch for the various Rocket Language packs on ClickWank.

I rarely speak too highly of ClickWank, but if there’s ever a time to push one of their links, it’s on the sixth upsell. Just don’t make a habit of it.

With a little tinkering, what I had on my hands was the grandaddy of all flogs – albeit one that would be profitable for only a short period of time. Pretty much all New Year’s Resolution traffic was fair game, since 90% of the users were going to associate themselves with at least one of the resolutions. It was the making of my wettest dreams, and the ROI was insane.

As the months have passed, I’ve become much more conservative; in all walks of life, but particularly where risque moneymaking schemes like this are concerned. I don’t wish to take the moral high ground – affiliates can choose to focus their businesses where they see fit. It’s none of my business. But I don’t plan to roll out a 2011 take on the New Year’s Resolution flog, which is why I’m happy to post about it.

I’m sure somebody reading this now will run wild with such a campaign on the Adsonars and Pulse360s of the world. But it doesn’t have to be scandalous. You don’t have to sling 7 different fragrances of the same bullshit in scumbag flogging style. You can use the New Year’s Resolution angle to improve just about any sales funnel.

Now is the perfect time to give your landing pages a face-lift with some hard selling copy; the type that appeals to the resolution setting nature of your users. It’s not hard to see how dating can be assaulted from a ‘make this a better year’ angle. The same for weight loss, bizopps and especially those offers related to going back to school.

I’ve always seen January 1st goal-setting as an exercise for the fickle minded. But from a marketing perspective, it’s a priceless window of opportunity. When else do you have large swaths of the population convincing themselves that it’s time to change? They’re doing half of our job for us!

Christ, it’s the only time in the year where the masses are searching for the shit we spend half our working hours trying to convince them they need!

Don’t miss out on the New Year’s Resolution madness. There’ll be plenty more opportunities to make your money, but rarely will they arrive gift-wrapped with a bow tie. This is the time to bank your Christmas bonus, seal the summer holiday and start 2012 with a bang.

Recommended This Week

Make sure you grab a copy of Premium Posts Volume 3. Featuring over 75 pages of tips and techniques to help you dominate the dating niche, Volume 3 should give your campaigns a nice boost for 2012. Download a copy here.
I hope you all had an awesome Christmas. If I don’t post before the New Year (very likely given my unread emails), have an awesome blowout to 2011. And a profitable non-Apocalyptic 2012.
If you’re a new reader, please add me to your RSS. Also follow me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.